The Kinderguardian Reunion
by DeLyse
Summary: Pacce, Taro, and Hana meet ten years after they parted ways. What has changed? One-shot!


**The ****Kindergardian**** Reunion**

_Disclaimer: I own nothing having to do with the characters or setting of this story. __Bleh_

Hana stood eagerly before her seat, searching the entire Blitzball stadium for any sign of a familiar face – two, in particular. She groaned in anticipation, gently nibbling on the side of her cheek without realizing it. It was a bad habit that she had outgrown after she and her two best friends parted ways, but now she found that she couldn't stop doing it. She attempted to stop herself from chewing her cheek, but once her mind began to wander about again and her hazel-green eyes went back to scanning the crowd for her friends, her teeth immediately went back to work on her cheek.

It was just much too exciting! It had been a decade since Hana had seen or spoken with either of the boys she used to hang around with. They fought many fiends then, going across Spira together to take on the evils that plagued the good people, and even tackled the soldiers of Bevelle for the famous High Summoner Yuna during her battle to find and defeat Vegnagun. It was truly an epic time in her life, where she never felt lonely or left out, and as she began to switch weight from one leg to the other back and forth, waiting fervently, she hoped that her two friends had felt the same as she did.

And then, her eyes widened as a face stood out amongst the others – a soft, kind, and timid face with brown eyes and light brown hair tied back behind him, the face of Taro. Hana hesitated, but she didn't know why. Perhaps she was just so stunned and excited, and needed a moment to get over the shock. She finally waved her hands out wildly, calling out for him as loud as she could and ignoring the annoyed looks she received from the Blitzball fans around her.

Taro turned in the direction of her calling and froze; he was going through the same shocked state that Hana had just a mere moment before. He then grinned sheepishly as he began to make his way through the filling stands and over to her. The girl embraced him tightly with glee, while his exchange was a little softer and slightly more uncertain than hers. When they pulled apart, Hana immediately grabbed his face, looked him over once more with a grin so wide it could have blocked out the sun, and then hugged him again with a squeal.

"Oh my goodness! What has it been – ten years now?" she exclaimed, leading him over to their seats.

"Er, yeah, ten years!" Taro replied in a soft, unsure tone.

His body language strongly suggested that he felt completely out of place there, but Hana knew that as soon as their best friend, their leader, would show his face, Taro would immediately pep up and regain all of the confidence that he had probably left behind when the three parted.

Hana leaned forward in her seat, the tips of her long, auburn brown hair almost brushing the tops of her boots. "Have you seen Pacce yet?" she asked her friend while looking all around them, noting every face that entered the stadium.

"Not yet… But he was always the late type," Taro replied with a small grin.

The girl beside him laughed freely. "You're right! Remember when we first left our homes and decided to become sphere hunters?" Taro's grinning response caused her to continue more excitedly. "We went to his house and had to practically drag him out of bed!"

The two of them momentarily became lost in the fun, happy memories that took place all of those years ago, before they had realized what an Eternal Calm really meant. They had been so young, only around seven years of age, and even though years of events and feelings had passed them by to replace those times, Hana and Taro felt as though they had never even left that era.

By the time the speech to all of the contestants were given, the Blitzball sphere began to form and fill with water, and cries of excitement waved across the seas of fans, Hana was about to give up on her search for their third friend. She turned to Taro, whom seemed to be thinking similar thoughts as her, and tapped him on the shoulder. "I could have sworn Pacce wrote back to me and told me he was coming," she said in his ear, trying to speak above the excited screams and whistles now.

"I got the same reply," Taro admitted, confusion arched in his brow.

Hana looked up at the evening sky, and then back to the enormous globe of water that the stadium seats centered around. "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait a little longer, but he's going to miss the kickoffs!"

Taro looked down at his ticket stub. "Kilika Beasts verses the Ronso Fangs."

"This is supposed to be a match to remember," Hana quickly explained, her excitement now filling to the brim with every inch of water that rose inside the magic-made globe in the center. "The Beasts haven't lost a match in over a year now, and the Ronso Fangs revamped their entire roster this year."

"So…bets are probably really high now, huh?"

"Yep, and no one can predict an outcome without doubts."

As the Blitzball stars began to fill the globe, waving and cheering, the roar of the crowd was nearly deafening. Hana joined the blasting waves of cheers, standing to her feet to jump and scream, while Taro clapped loudly in his seat with a smile. Everything was getting ready to start, but where was Pacce?

A woman shuffled avidly by, holding on to her son's little hand and pulling him along behind her. Taro and Hana brought their knees to their chest to allow the woman and the little boy to pass, but Hana immediately quirked a brow when the woman sat down in the empty seat beside her. She looked over to the seats beside Taro, but all of them were taken, as well. She turned back to the woman and politely patted her shoulder to get her attention.

"Yes?" the woman asked, trying not to be drowned out by the cheering and screaming.

"Is that your seat?" Hana asked as courteously as possible.

The woman brought out her ticket and read the seat number, then looked at the painted numbers behind her on the back of the seat. "Yep, it sure is."

"Alrighty. Sorry about that," Hana said with a smile, waving to the little boy on the woman's left, who was staring wide-eyed at her. He giggled suddenly, finding her hand amusing, and she couldn't help but laugh along with him.

"What's going on?" Taro asked when Hana sat back straight and turned her head to him.

"Apparently either Pacce sold his ticket, lost his ticket, or stood us up."

The two sighed together and watched as, one by one, each Blitzball player entered the globe of water. The announcer, an older male, called out each of their names as they waved before entering the crystal clear water, swimming over to join their respective teams. It wasn't until Taro squinted hard at one of the players that he realized that Pacce hadn't invited them to watch the match with them – he was _in_ the match. The teen turned to Hana, his small ponytail of light brown hair swinging around over his shoulder with his quick movement, and tapped her on her forearm to get her attention. He frantically pointed to their friend just as the announcer cried out his name, and then the cries and cheers became louder around them. Hana's jaw dropped, but she kept clapping loudly along, looking back to Taro constantly, as though to make sure she wasn't the only one shocked.

Suddenly, Pacce, after striking a silly pose – the pose that he, Hana, and Taro used to do when they were younger – stood tall and cupped his hands around his mouth to yell something out. His voice was drowned out by the roaring fans, but the announcer stopped and approached him with his voice amplification device.

"What did you want to say to all of your fans?" the announcer asked, a grin in his eyes.

Pacce looked directly over at his two best friends, whom both looked at each other and back to Pacce with a gasp, and then he cried out, "For the Kinderguardians!!"

He struck that same funny pose again, and Hana and Taro couldn't help themselves. They jumped up from their seats and joined in with their own heroic poses, and the fans began to scream even louder, even though half of them didn't know why they were cheering after what their favorite Blitzball star had just said. Still, some of the screaming fans did know what he was talking about, as they remembered him from his sphere hunting and fiend battling days from ten years ago.

"He's such a little sneak!" Hana replied once the roaring and whistling settled down a bit.

The announcer continued to call out each player's name as Taro looked over at his friend with a smile. Hana could already tell that confidence was beginning to seep into him finally as he grinned comfortably. "We should've known he'd do something like this!"

Once the Blitzball match began, Hana and Taro's eyes never left Pacce. He was an amazing player, truly on par with the legendary Tidus, and they both simultaneously wondered if he had trained under the ex-Guardian's wing. Pacce brought in score after score after score, each time being rewarded with wild cheers and women screaming out their confessions of love for him. All the while, Hana and Taro just knew that he was playing his best for them, not for the other fans. Besides, he had always been somewhat of a showoff, anyway.

When halftime was finally announced about an hour into the game, the players, some dead tired and others still jumping with the last bit of their excited energy, Pacce being one of them, made their way out of the globe of water for a break. Hana and Taro looked at each other with similar smiles, both silently answering the same question that they had wanted to ask each other, but it wasn't needed. They wanted to go see their friend. Both of them jumped from their seats, Hana giggling as they leapt over other people's legs and feet, and made their way to the exit. They hurried past the security guards, who were too busy watching the players leave the sphere of water to catch the two teens, and Hana laughed wildly as the guards began to chase them. Her mood was infectious, as it had always been before, and soon Taro was laughing right along with her.

The two sped down the wide, tall hallways and down toward the dressing rooms. They burst through the door and suddenly froze as fourteen or more Ronso eyes were on them. Hana giggled nervously and bowed before the team. "Eh, sorry! We'll be leaving now…"

She sped back out of the door, Taro following behind her, but just as they ran around the corner, the two security guards whom had been on their tail skidded to a halt before them. They grabbed each teen's arm and roughly walked them back down the halls. Hana grumbled to herself, while Taro sighed and kept quiet. Suddenly, like an angel in disguise, Pacce ran into his friends just as they were about to be brought to the exit of the Blitzball stadium and stopped them dead in their tracks.

"Hold right there, those guys are my friends!" Pacce cried, pointing a finger at them. His black hair was still short and wild, with those two long strands of hair at the sides of his face that had always been there, and his eyes were a deep, dark brown that almost looked black, even in the light.

"We caught these 'friends' of yours on the other side of the stadium," one of the guards replied, clearly unimpressed. He had a job to do. As he went to leave, his comrade to join him, Pacce suddenly kicked him in the shins with a mischievous grin. Hana was freed, and she sped to Pacce's side to help him take on the other guard and free Taro.

"Quick, this way!" Pacce cried out, his two laughing friends following him as they left the two guards on the ground, holding their knees to their chests and cursing. The three runaways finally reached the other side of the dome, the side where the Kilika Beasts made their stay, and hurried into the dressing room. They slid past the others there, Taro becoming overwhelmed as he tried to say hello to each of the players they passed until Hana finally grabbed him by the hand and dragged him behind her. Finally, Pacce stopped in the very back behind the rack of spare uniforms, a grin bigger than Hana and Taro had ever seen.

"Sweet! We totally lost 'em," Pacce said, high-fiving his childhood friends.

"That was so awesome! I can't believe you _kicked_ him!" Taro cried out. Hana smiled at him, for now the shy one had just become the fully fearless one. She, too, could feel the confidence radiating from Pacce loud and clear.

The young Blitzball star laughed triumphantly. "There's nothing the Kinderguardians can't handle!"

Hana smiled brightly as she tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "I still can't believe you said that in front of the entire stadium," she admitted, grinning.

"They'll still love me," he replied with a wink.

"Oh yeah, we can see that!" Hana responded with a laugh, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Almost everyone there was screaming for you – like, literally _screaming_!"

Pacce was all pride now, his chest puff out and his mouth a constant shark-toothed grin. "I'm the youngest Blitzer they've ever allowed in."

Taro's eyes widened slightly. "Wow, good job!" He hesitated, as thought thinking over what he was going to say next, and then looked back up to Pacce once more. "Have you ever hurt anyone yet?"

Again, Pacce just laughed richly. "Once or twice, but I think I've been to see a healer a lot more than them!"

Hana could not help but giggle along with the two, chewing the inside of her cheek again. She caught herself doing it and gave herself a mental slap in the face. It was hard not to get nervous and excited all at the same time, for she was finally with her two best friends again. The Kinderguardians never broke up, and they never gave up. That was their motto, and as far as she could tell, neither of the boys had broken it, either. They would all be together till the end, no matter how many years separated and changed them, and she was glad for it.

* * *

A/N: This was a fun little ditty I wrote today after updating All Your Airship. It has been snowing fiercely, and the wind has been blowing so hard that snow is building up high against the windows downstairs, sandwiched in between the pane of glass and the screen. These simple hours of snow storms jumpstarted my brain and I couldn't stop writing! And, well…this was born! -smiles- 


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